Classic Album Review : Nirvana - Bleach (1989)
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If you discuss Nirvana’s final album In Utero with people who were alive and old enough not to wear diapers in the nineties, you’ll discover a weird case of the Mandela effect. A lot of music folks claim it’s their ultimate punk rock statement against music establishment, which couldn’t be any more wrong. In Utero was a self-sabotaging noise rock experiment that didn’t claim anything except that Kurt Cobain was in a pretty dire psychological state.
But here’s the thing: Kurt Cobain’s punk rock, antiauthoritarian statement was indeed recorded. It does exist. It’s called Bleach and it was Nirvana’s first record.
Bleach might not benefit from the historical perspective of Nirvana’s iconic frontman’s rebellion against his own fame and success, but that doesn’t make it uninteresting. It really marks the moment where Cobain, Krist Novoselic and then drummer Chad Channing started turning the tropes of punk rock against themselves. They slowed down the tempo, down-tuned their instruments and internalized its struggles to turn them into something that would change the world.
The big song from Bleach is About A Girl, which was popularized four years later on their MTV Unplugged record. Admittedly inspired by the Beatles, About A Girl is a sloppy, down tuned pop song which Kurt Cobain wrote about his girlfriend Tracy Marander. It relies heavily on a simplistic guitar riff and a catchy chorus, but it has a strong personality. It’s the kind of song you mumble to yourself when you just met a girl and you don’t now yet if you’re into her.
Back in 1989, the lead single wasn’t even one of their songs. Love Buzz is a cover from a Dutch psychedelic rock band called Shocking Blue. It is one of the best songs on the record, mostly because it is so catchy and accessible despite Cobain’s byzantine delivery. School is another song often remembered from Bleach, mostly because of its obsessive lyrics and and its thunderous power chords. That is as punk rock as Nirvana ever got.
Obsessive repetition is a strong theme on Bleach. On songs like Negative Creep and Scoff, Cobain can scream the same lyrics for minutes. He impersonates vile and antisocial individuals, which both shines a light on his darker side and serve as a declaration of intent for what he doesn’t want to turn into. They are technically simple, but emotionally complicated songs. That is what makes them so great. It’s punk rock from a self-loathing punk rocker.
Blew was the other single from the album. I was not as into it as I was into the aforementioned songs, but I love its abrasiveness and more abstract themes. I liked the following song Floyd The Barber much better. That’s the thing about Bleach. It’s dark, raw and grimy. It’s not angry at the world as much as it is angry at itself. It’s a tortured, dissonant and obsessive mess that comes off a lot better than it should’ve because it has a fucking soul and it echoes real feelings.
Bleach is perhaps my least favorite Nirvana record, but it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. On the contrary. It’s a mean, rip-roaring rejection of everything and everybody. While it’s too angry and up tempo to be depressive, I wouldn’t call it empowering or constructive in any way. It’s a mean-ass record that is meant to terrify kids and their pearl clutching mothers like the distortion monster that it is and it’s what it eventually became. Because of that, it has become immortal.
